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One of the worst things about starting at a new school is the loss of closeness. Middle school was smaller, more intimate. Safer. She knew everyone’s name she walked past in the halls. The painted bricks were nostalgic and familiar. Every crack in the floor tiles. Every poster on the wall. The first 3 years of middle school were pretty average, she spent them making friends and not really trying in class, yet still managing to pass them all because not much effort was needed.
She met her best friend, Abby Yates, in 5th grade. They were stand partners in orchestra, and frequently got in trouble for making little jokes to each other about the piece they were playing, or the conductor, or whatever was going on that day.
The biggest pro of middle school though, was 8th grade. Her class was king of the school. Nobody younger really bothers 8th graders, so she only had to deal with the people in her own grade. It was great. Until the rumors started.
As soon as kids were able to perceive what might be “butch” or “flamboyant” or just generally gay, they zeroed in on her. Whether they were learning from their parents, television, media, or each other, regardless of the source, Holtz became the target.
One English assignment had them learning about the concept of “controversial topics”, taught by a student teacher. Their student teacher passed around a sheet of paper where everyone wrote one “controversial” idea they had, and as it was passed around everyone else would vote on it.
Abby panicked and wrote something she didn’t even agree with, something about the age limit for driver’s licenses. Everyone voted against it.
Holtz, however, was prepared. She had been soldiering through whispers and rumors and jokes and side comments for a while already, and there was one “controversial” topic close to her heart as a result. She wrote “gay people should be able to get married”. Instead of just a vote, someone else in the class wrote something in reply to that when the sheet was passed around. By the time the sheet got to Abby, she couldn’t even see what that person had written, because it was so heinous the student teacher had to blacken it out with sharpie.
“Why bother?” She once told Abby, shortly before coming out as bisexual to the whole school. If the bullies are gonna try and call her gay behind her back, why not beat them to the punch? Not to mention, her absolute favorite celebrity was openly bisexual and vocal about LGBTQ issues, and supporting the community. Having that, someone to look up to, to represent you and fight for your issues, got her through middle school.
The thing about Holtz, though, by 8th grade she knew she wasn’t bisexual. One day in homeroom, while everyone was settling in before the bell rang, she whispered to Abby the truth. “I’m not bi. I’m full gay.”
Abby kinda knew that already. Not that she was trying to stereotype, but she knew her friend pretty well. “Oh. Are you gonna tell people?”
“I told a few people. But not everyone yet. Keep it a secret for now, ok?”
“Of course.” Abby was always supportive.
Holtz had her suspicions about why, and it was confirmed over the summer when she got a text from Abby, seemingly out of nowhere:
[I think I’m bi]
Abby sent that text to exactly 2 people, Holtzy and one of her other close friends.
It was comforting, both of them were learning more about themselves, and they weren’t completely alone, at least in school.
But Abby didn’t come out publicly yet. And when they started High School in the fall, she had the advantage of all the homophobic hate being directed elsewhere. On Holtzy, and the one or two openly gay upperclassmen.
High school sucked, for plenty of reasons.
But being the gay freshman in a culture that already hates gays and freshmen, Holtz was cornered.
Luckily school clubs started having meetings pretty soon. There was a Gay-Straight-Alliance club, and Abby and Holtz didn’t even need to navigate the confusing halls of the new school, because the club was held in the same classroom where they both had 6th period English together.
At the first meeting, Abby introduced herself as an ally, too shy to come out to the school just yet.
But Holtzmann lit up the room. “I’m Holtzy, I’m gay, and I was born this way.” She said proudly, using a famous line from her favorite celebrity, eliciting a light applause from the room and a smile from her friend.
Everything was not as on-track as it seemed, though. Something deeper was going on. Holtz was fielding homophobic bullying not only in school but online as well. People she’d never even seen in person, whose names she didn’t even know, who knew absolutely nothing about her, telling her things you wouldn’t even say to your worst enemy. Sure, she could’ve and should’ve ignored it. But she was literally 9 days into 9th grade. A 14-year-old.
One of those nights, up on her computer well after her family had gone to bed, reading hateful comments, it drove her too far.
I’m done. She thought. She glanced out the window into her backyard.
They’ll see.
She stood up, walking shakily with anger, self-hatred, and pure defeat flowing through her veins. She reached for the doorknob.
Suddenly, her flip phone started vibrating on her desk. She stopped in her tracks and just stared at it for a minute, plugged in and charging, about to vibrate itself off the edge. She stepped over and grabbed it before it could fall and checked the caller ID.
Abby.
She snapped it open. “…Hello?” She answered quietly, trying not to wake anyone in the house.
“Hey! You’re still awake!” Abby’s voice was so far removed from everything Holtzy had been undergoing the past few hours: the hateful comments, the silence, the thoughts…
“So are you.” Holtz pointed out quietly, kind of phrasing it as a question.
There was a shuffling noise on Abby’s end, “Yeah! I have to do some laundry, and you know my basement is spooky as hell, so I figured if I’m on the phone with someone while I’m doing laundry, the demons can’t get me.” She giggled at her own ridiculous fears.
“Oh.” Holtz didn’t know what she was expected to do here.
“So, whaddya doin?”
“Oh, I was just on the computer.” Holtz said vaguely.
“Have you tried that game I showed you?”
“What?”
“That one with the hotel and the chandelier that makes you lose the game if you break it? And the séance scene?” Abby started laughing.
“Oh, the Nancy Drew thing?”
“Yeah! Did you try it?”
“Not yet, sorry.”
“Well, do it soon so we can commiserate about how much it sucks.” There was more shuffling on Abby’s end of the line, and the sound of the dryer door being yanked open.
“Um.” Holtz was still planning something dark. “I probably won’t get to it.” She glanced at her window again.
Abby, luckily, picked up on something being off. “Holtzy, are you ok?”
Holtz finally sat back down in her computer chair. “I… I don’t think so.” She felt tears coming.
“What’s going on?”
“Stupid people on the internet.”
“Oh man.” Abby knew Holtz spent a lot more time on the internet than she did. “Ignore them.”
Easier for her to say than for Holtz to do.
After not getting a response, Abby tried to walk her friend through it. “Okay, close all the tabs you have open. Close the whole internet. Do that for me.”
Reluctantly, Holtz put her hand on the mouse. She sniffled back tears. “I need to reply first.”
“No! They’re not worth it. Listen to me.”
“Let me at least delete the comments then.”
“No. You can do that tomorrow. Don’t even bother right now, it’s not worth your time.”
Holtz hesitantly listened, and closed the internet. “Okay. Done.”
“Good. Now turn off the computer.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I said so, young lady.”
A grin snuck its way onto Holtz’s lips. She sniffled again and turned off the computer. “Now what?”
Abby knew her next job was distraction. “Now tell me the name of that kid we used to hang out with after school last year? Remember with Michelle? That other kid who was always in detention? I can’t remember his name and it’s been really bothering me!”
Holtz stood up and closed the curtain. No more temptation. No awful thoughts. She moved to sit on her bed. “He was a year behind us right?”
“Yeah, or two, I’m not sure. I just remember trying to make him laugh from the hallway outside while he was in detention, and he got in trouble for laughing. That teacher was crazy.”
Holtz relaxed into her pillows. “Everyone says that, but I never had him.”
“You’re lucky.”
“I’ll be honest, I only remember a little bit about hanging out after school, I mostly remember having to walk home from school alone.”
“Alone!! What about all the times me and Carmen walked with you? Which was like, every day!” Abby exclaimed.
“Yeah, you live two blocks from school and Carmen lives one. I live SIX BLOCKS AWAY.”
Abby threw her head back and laughed. “Okay yeah you have a point. Well now that we’re in high school, neither of us lives in walking distance.”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty long bus ride.”
“Oh! The other day my morning bus was—”
“Tyler!”
Abby processed this for a moment, “Yes! That’s his name, thank you! Wonder how he’s doing.”
Holtz checked her bedside clock. It was 2am. “He’s probably still in detention.”
Abby laughed out loud. “Oh, how about that piece we got for Orchestra the other day? The four-pager? Is it any easier for the bass section? The part for violins is insane, you were right to switch.”
Holtz grinned, sniffling the last bit and looking at her darkened computer screen, not able to bother her any more tonight. The words still ping-ponged around her brain though.
It wasn’t an easy thing to shake free of, but she could give it her best try, and so long as she had people to reach out to, she’d stick around.
~/~